Robert Reich's Endorsement -- No Big Deal
Apparently, some people think it's big news that Robert Reich has decided to publicly endorse Barack Obama. We shouldn't be surprised. For months now, Reich has been criticizing Hillary Clinton on his blog and elsewhere, distorting her policies and her positions. He's criticized Senator Clinton's solutions on the foreclosure crisis, on health care and trade. He's been in the Obama camp for some time.
Despite his reputation as a liberal and a friend of working men and women, Reich knows how to walk both sides of the street. I recall that he rarely, if ever, mentioned unions during his four years as Secretary of Labor. He has no problem backing proposals that cheer business more than labor, like ending the corporate income tax. If you read his recent book, Supercapitalism, you would think Steve Forbes was the writer. But no, it's the former Secretary of Labor calling for eliminating a tax that helps keep down the tax burden on working men and women across this nation. Does Senator Obama support that Reich idea? Is eliminating the corporate income tax going to be part of the "change we can believe in"?
Reich says that corporate responsibility is counterproductive. He thinks it's a distraction. That's beautiful. Here we have a former Secretary of Labor, someone who should know better, taking the GOP line that corporations need to focus on making money and forget about everything else. The movement for social responsibility has promoted ethical decision-making in business, community development programs, day-care centers, HIV-AIDS training, family-friendly workplaces, and more. To suggest that those developments are a distraction from the responsibility of corporations to amass profits for shareholders, as Secretary Reich does in his book, is shameful.
So is his support for NAFTA. Reich says unfair trade pacts bear no responsibility for the decline in manufacturing jobs in the U.S. Two months ago, Reich wrote that "it's a shame the Democratic candidates for president feel they have to make trade - specifically NAFTA - the enemy of blue-collar workers and the putative cause of their difficulties. NAFTA is not to blame." He's wrong on NAFTA, just as Obama's chief economic advisor Professor Goolsbee was wrong on NAFTA.
Now the question is: Does Senator Obama support fair trade when his friends Goolsbee and Reich say "No."
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
As a recently retired Commonwealth of Pennsylvania employee, I have the comfort of good pension and quality healthcare coverage. This could not have been without the exceptional representation most Commonwealth employees have depended upon from AFSCME over the last forty years..
Still, McEntee must recognize that governmental services depend on private-sector jobs that provide the very same quality of life wages, healthcare and security in retirement enjoyed by unionized government workers. Hillary Clinton is lying when she says she never supported NAFTA nor supports expansion to Peru and Columbia.
To all the taxpayers of Pennsylvania, thank you for appreciating and paying for the plows of winter, the pothole patchings of spring, the parks of summer, the year-round care of our veterans and so much more. We need you to keep doing that, so we need you to earn enough to continue doing so. You are the source of all that is good about government, and you deserve the very same wages and benefits you so generously grant your employees.
The fantasy of the rich and powerful that, no matter how poor and sick regular Americans become, we will just strum our banjos and dance the night away in ignorant bliss, is to revive the very stereotype of the slave that, if urgent changes are not made soon, will be the common condition.
So, for the hope of this nation, I must break ranks with my own union. I will be voting April 22nd for Barack Obama.
__two hats
I think Robert Reich is terrific, and I'm thrilled he's supporting Obama.
What I can't understand, though, is why a labor union leader would write so many articles supporting Hillary Clinton. What is it you don't understand about nafta?
The Clintons started this entire devastation of our country and crushing of working people. Bill is the one who first pushed the idea that we should allow our businesses to send all their work to third world countries to be done by slave labor, children, or prisoners, something that was unheard of before the "happy talk" days of Bill Clinton. And at the same time that he was outsourcing American jobs, Bill and Hillary were going around to other countries, like India, and buying into businesses there that would be the major beneficiaries of his programs.
And we all know that his corporate and elite and foreign friends have given him over $110 billion as a big wet thank you.
So exactly why would any union support the Clintons? It's a mystery.
You need to do a little research. NAFTA was negotiated by the GHW Bush administration. Bill Clinton did not hide nor obscure his intention to support NAFTA; he did promise to negotiate side by side treaties dealing with workers rights and environmental protections. He did so. Various members of the Clinton Administration as well as two neutral biographers (Bernstein and Bedell Smith) of HRC have stated categorically that she was skeptical and/or outright opposed to NAFTA. Clinton Trade Rep Mickey Kantor spoke in a recent forum about how he sat Mrs Clinton down and argued to her that she had to support NAFTA. And, of course, as a member of the Administration, she did. Most First Ladies do support and work for the policies of their husbands.
Originally on the campaign trail she stated that NAFTA has not worked out as we thought it would. Anyone who knows about the Mexican economy will know that it hasn't worked out well for Mexico, either. However, much of the economic despair of the rustbelt states began long before NAFTA was ever thought of, primarily because the ancient manufacturing and production capacity of the US could not compete with the newer, heavily-subsidized production capacity in Japan and Germany
Both the Obama and Clinton campaigns have given a wink and a nod to Canada but not Mexico demonstrates that each realizes where the real problem lies.
Obama is pro NAFTA and free trade. He speaks around this with double speak in some states. He is clear in his books and in his San Fran comments.
This is old news.
Yeah, like a lot of Obama old politico followers, he is looking for work. These old white guys know Hillary won't hire them; she doesn't need them. They are banking on the fact that young, inexperience, not-ready-
For once can the Clinton supporters not trash someone for endorsing Obama?
Whoa, Gerry. I don't think you want to go there. If it is legit to question his commitment to fair trade, then you're also saying it is legit to question Hillary Clinton's commitment, because Bill Clinton has spent the past few years traveling the world making millions of dollars promoting and working for unfair trade deals, like the $800,000 he made for him and Hillary in Colombia? I mean, as far as I can tell, their records in the senate are nearly identical on trade, so you can't say "look at their record."
I mean, really, the take away from this is that you are calling into question your candidate's commitment to fair trade deals, and I don't think the campaign would be happy to have you making that case. I'd edit the post, if I were you.
If I understand you correctly, Mr. McEntee, nothing means anything until you tell us it does. Although I'm pro-union on principal, it's exactly this sort of elitist attitude that I found objectionable in the unions in which I've been a member.
Leaders in unions, in my experience, tend to lose sight of where they came from rather quickly. In some respects, I've found some union leaders to be more objectionable than representatives of the companies they say they are protecting us from. This is one of the reasons -- a major one, in my humble opinion -- that unions have witnessed declining membership in the last 50 years. People just get fed up with the two-faced BS.
McEntee is out of touch with his members. His constant shilling for Clinton is an extreme embarassment to those of us who are loyal AFSCME members.
If Reich is so bad, why did the Clintons put him in their cabinet? Had Reich endorsed Clinton would McEntee had written the same column attacking Reich's views? Hope McEntee wrote this while on vacation, not while he was getting paid with members' hard-earned dollars. Column doesn't do anything to advance our interests.
Mccentee offers yet another example of the Clinton campaign's M.O.: if someone who "owes" allegiance to the Clintons doesn't toe the party line, the only way to respond is to destroy that person's character. If Richardson was Judas, I wonder what they'll call Reich. (I can only imagine the anti-semitic terms she'll be uttering behind closed doors -- she's got quite a history of this.)
I see you've previously stated the mission of your union as such:
"Our campaign is about promoting Hillary Clinton"
so I think I can understand where you're coming from.
Here's why it IS a big deal. He was born in Scranton and his conscience has driven him to say something. He admits that maybe nobody cares as you are so snarkily maintaining here but I care and I think it matters. And maybe, who knows, maybe it will matter to Pennsylvania.
Maybe not. But if he kept quiet feeling as he does, he would only know that he didn't give voice to this primary.
Anyone notice the Scranton daily paper endorsed Obama?
Too bad Clinton didn't insist that they tackle real topics in this last "debate" including trade policy. Instead she wallowed in gotcha politics that had nothing to do with trade, global warming, health care, foreclosure, monetary policies, or our crumbling infrastructure. Time after time, Obama asked to stop these diversions and divisiveness and focus on real topics, but Clinton cannot help herself from personal attacks. It makes one think that progressive issues and future is less important than tearing down an opponent. It is these tactics that have turned me off from the Clintons after years of defending them.
No matter how you twist and turn facts, the inescapable fact is that a HUGE part of the Clinton legacy includes the fast track passage of NAFTA. Despite what she says now, there is evidence that she was indeed a supporter of NAFTA and didnt lift a finger to put NAFTA on hold until job and environmental protections in the agreement.
Unfortunately, the Clintons were very naive that they had a prayer in renegotiating NAFTA after the passage. Once it was ratified, they gave away any power to renegotiate terms. I knew this at the time and felt very angry at the Clinton administration about this. Clinton supporters should think twice in bringing up NAFTA since the Clinton's fingerprints are all over that.
Reading your impressive bio, I understand your sentiment.
But please do not fall into the whirlpool of attacking Senator Obama by association.
Mr. Reich, for all we know, has his reasons - most probable, very personal
and strategic reasons.
At this point, don't you sound like you're sour-graping?
wow you're a genius, i can't imagine how people could possibly think that obama might not hold every single position held by every single person that supports him. that's totally the way it works for every person i know, throw in every person i've met on the street too. oh and yeah the fact that reich has criticized hillary before totally means his endorsement is completely and utterly irrelevant, we should totally ignore the reasons he cited for unequivocally stating his support at this particular point in time. might i add, he's probably just pissed hillary married bill instead of him, some people really know how to hold a grudge. what can i say, you hit the proverbial nail on the head.
Once again, Mr. Obama is being asked to defend every position on every subject anyone supporting or associated with him has taken over the last 40 years. Witness Ayers, whose 'Underground' antics occured when Obama was 8 years old.
Hillary is NOT held to such ridiculous standards. Is she responsible for the activities of John Murtha, whose earmarks are a HOR's record year after year? Is she responsible for John Corzine's fat-cat Wall Street activities before he became a politician? is she responsible for Barney Frank's little male prostitution ring run out of his DC townhome years ago?
Of course not. Either hold Hillary accountable as you do Obama, or better yet, back off and deal with important issues in this campaign!
Only the lesser lites and the most sleazy of the Clinton mob have endorsed Hillary Clinton so I understand your jealousy.
Thanks Dr. Reich. We appreciate your support.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
